Shirley Watson-Poole is in charge of physician recruitment for the health authority.

"Quite frankly, there’s quite a few more patients than doctors can take, right now. We hope by the time we have the future recruits — of which we have five for Digby County, not all in the town — we hope by the time they come that all of our patients will have a family doctor,” she said.

Digby has been looking to international medical graduates to fill the void.

The town has helped doctors find houses and added on incentives like fishing and golf trips as well as financial incentives from the Nova Scotia Department of Health.

This will be Abu-Seido's first intake, but both physicians over the first year of practice will take on between 1000 and 1200 patients.

The SWNDHA says there are five more family doctors lined up to come to Digby County over the next 18 months and they estimate by then, everyone should have a nurse practitioner or doctor who can see them.